These are disturbing times that we live in. Up is down, black is white, evil is good. I don’t remember ever seeing or experiencing such uneasiness or bizarre happenings. Just when you think the world can’t get any crazier, you read a new headline or see a new report. Satan is very busy.

A good example is the bizarre and frightening case of the young actor, Johnny Lewis. It’s just one of several horrific crimes committed lately in this country and around the world. He was best known for his role in a television show called, “Sons of Anarchy.” Just the other day Lewis was found dead, along with his eighty-one year old landlady, Catherine Davis, in Los Angeles. Apparently in a rage Lewis attacked Davis and beat her to death, then for a yet undetermined reason, threw himself off the roof of her house onto the driveway. Lewis also beat Davis’s pet cat to death and even dismembered it with his bare hands. Shortly after killing Davis, two men apparently tried to stop Lewis, but were unable. They said he seemed to have “superhuman strength.” The police strongly suspect that Lewis was on drugs, possibly a drug called, “smiles,” which causes hallucinations.

While I believe Lewis probably was on some type of drug, I believe there is more going on than meets the eye. Whatever type of drug Lewis may have been on, and whatever type of hallucinations it may have caused, I believe that it also opened a door into the spirit world that wasn’t meant to be opened. Drugs of any kind, but especially illegal drugs, can cause a person’s defenses to be dropped, and a spiritual door to be opened. And no, it’s not a good or godly spiritual door. I believe that drugs make demonic possession just that much easier in an ungodly person’s life.

Now I know a lot of people, even (if not especially) those in the church, dismiss demonic possession as a thing of ancient times if it even truly existed at all. But I believe demonic activity is not only alive and well in the 21st century, I believe it’s thriving in these last days.

Doctors and psychiatrists have fancy names for everything nowadays, and everything can be explained by science. The drugs simply cause hallucinations and paranoia thus causing these horrific crimes. Well, yes and no. The drugs are definitely a big factor, but the dark and inhuman ways these crimes are committed, go beyond only drugs.

Demonic possession is real and goes back millennia. Jesus cast out many demons in His lifetime, the most famous being the man possessed by “Legion” (Mark 5:1-15). As a matter of fact, the demon-possessed man had “superhuman strength” and could not be kept in chains. And Paul dealt with demon possession also, and cast the demon out in the name of Jesus as seen in Acts 16:16-18: “And it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying: 17 The same followed Paul and us, and cried, saying, These men are the servants of the most high God, which shew unto us the way of salvation. 18 And this did she many days. But Paul, being grieved, turned and said to the spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out the same hour.”

 

Demon possession is real, and I also don’t think it’s rare. Too many people today, including Christians, too easily dismiss demonic possession as real and a real reason for some of the unbelievable crime and acts of violence. People are very willing to believe in aliens that many scientists now talk about with a straight face as fact, but believe in something Biblical, well that’s just nonsense! Let’s remember the scripture in Eph. 6:12: “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”

The crimes and violence we now see all too often is more easily explained and understood from the Biblical perspective of demonic possession. The horrible murder committed by Johnny Lewis against Catherine Davis is only the latest in a string of bizarre crimes that I believe are only going to grow in frequency and weirdness in these last days we’re living in. A result of a society that has increasingly turned its back on God and has even become openly hostile to the things of God.

Johnny Lewis was only 28 years old. His whole life was ahead of him. Now all eternity is ahead of him. And he has all eternity to pay for his multitude of sins, including murder.

The world is growing more insane each day, but there are lost souls to reach for the Lord. Let’s be aware of the evil growing in the world, but let’s also be about our Father’s work.

www.jeffpatty.com

jeff@jeffpatty.com